Time for action – using subtasks and sub-progress monitors

When performing a set of operations, subtasks can give the user additional details about the state of the operation. A subtask is merely a named message that is displayed along with the task name in the Progress view.

1. Add a monitor.subTask during the operation to give feedback:

   for (int i=0; i<50 && !monitor.isCanceled(); i++) {
     if (i == 10) {
       monitor.subTask("Doing something");
     } else if (i == 25) {
       monitor.subTask("Doing something else");
     } else if (i == 40) {
       monitor.subTask("Nearly there");
     }
     Thread.sleep(100);
     monitor.worked(100);
   }

2. Run the Eclipse instance, and look at the Progress view. The subtask should be shown underneath the status bar:

   

3. When calling another method with a progress monitor, if the monitor is passed as is, it can have undesirable effects. Add a new method, checkDozen, to the anonymous Job class inside the HelloHandler class, and add a condition in the for loop that breaks out...